WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives prepared to vote on Friday to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline that will help transport oil from Canada to the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, but a companion bill in the Senate may lack votes to pass next week.

The bills would circumvent the need for approval of TransCanada Corp’s $8 billion project by the Obama administration, which has been pending for more than six years.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Legislation to approve the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline began racing through the U.S. Congress on Wednesday as Democrats and Republicans appeared to be coming together in a challenge of President Barack Obama’s oversight of the project.

In a series of rapid developments that unfolded just hours after Congress returned from a seven-week recess, there were indications the measure could pass and be sent to Obama sometime next week.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As incoming head of the Senate Energy Committee, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski will gain more clout in January to reverse the 40-year ban on most U.S. crude oil exports, but she is unlikely to rush into legislative action.

The Republican senator has fought to relax the ban all year by issuing a series of papers detailing how such exports have been allowed in the past, holding a private meeting on the subject with Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, and hinting that 2015 could be the time to introduce ban-ending legislation.

WASHINGTON, Nov 6 (Reuters) – Companies eager to export U.S.
oil face fines and other risks if they stray from
government-approved practices, trade lawyers said this week, but
the challenge is figuring out what the government allows because
its rulings have so far been private.

As the drilling boom floods the Gulf Coast with light oil
that local refineries cannot easily process, energy companies
are under pressure to sell the petroleum to global markets,
despite a 40-year ban on crude exports. A 20 percent drop in oil
prices this fall has also made them anxious to find new buyers.

WASHINGTON, Oct 24 (Reuters) – More than a dozen U.S. oil
producers have joined to lobby the federal government to reverse
the 40-year-old ban on U.S. crude exports, a move that
supporters hope would create jobs and boost national security, a
spokesman for one of the companies and a lobbyist for another
one said on Friday.

Producers for American Crude Oil Exports, or PACE, is the
first lobbying group to form on reversing the ban.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As he contemplates dealing with crumbling shores, melting ice and other changes in the rapidly changing Arctic, Admiral Robert Papp looks back at the rough and tumble New York City of the 1970s for inspiration.

Papp, who became the first ever U.S. special representative for the Arctic in July, said he only needs to remember the first time he visited New York Harbor in 1970 for encouragement on tackling complicated issues. “It was disgusting,” he said about the industrial and other waste that wrecked the city’s shores.

NEW YORK, Oct 14 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s move to keep
crude oil production high, fueling a steep global price slump,
may have an unexpected consequence: intensifying the campaign by
U.S. producers to scrap Washington’s decades-old ban on exports
of domestic crude.

Global oil prices plummeted nearly 5 percent on Tuesday to
their lowest since 2010, as OPEC’s core members showed no sign
of intervening to support the market. Amid talk of a price war,
Iran, generally a price hawk, has changed course and said it can
live with lower prices.

WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) – Ending a 40-year ban on U.S.
crude oil exports would lower domestic gasoline prices because
it would put more petroleum onto global markets, where fuel
prices are primarily set, said a study released on Tuesday.

As the U.S. oil boom of the last six years builds an excess
of light crude along the Gulf Coast refining hub, calls have
risen for Congress and the Obama administration to relax the ban
on shipments to global customers.

WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) – Ending a 40-year old ban on
U.S. crude oil exports would not raise domestic gasoline prices
because it would put more petroleum onto global markets, where
fuel prices are primarily set, a study by The Aspen Institute
said on Tuesday.

As the U.S. oil boom of the last six years builds an excess
of light crude along the Gulf Coast refining hub, calls have
risen for Congress and the Obama administration to relax the ban
on shipments to global customers.

(Reuters) – As oil production swells, demand falters and prices slide, the global oil market appears on the verge of a pivotal shift from an era of scarcity to one of abundance.

Oil prices have fallen as much as 20 percent since June, despite a host of rising supply risks, leading more investors and traders to consider whether 2015 is the year in which the U.S. shale oil boom finally tips the world into surplus.

About Timothy

"I cover U.S. energy and environment policy and climate change. Moved to DC in late 2009 after a decade in New York. Author of "Diminishing Resources:Oil," which is one in a series of books for young adults."